WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:15.000 This is Hacker Public Radio episode 3,929 for Thursday the 24th of August 2023. 00:15.000 --> 00:21.000 Today's show is entitled, some experiences with different notes apps. 00:21.000 --> 00:25.000 It is hosted by Lee and is about 10 minutes long. 00:25.000 --> 00:27.000 It carries a clean flag. 00:27.000 --> 00:40.000 The summary is about apps that store notes as marked down. 00:40.000 --> 00:43.000 You are listening to a show from the Reserve queue. 00:43.000 --> 00:48.000 We are airing it now because we had free slots that were not filled. 00:48.000 --> 00:54.000 This is a community project that needs listeners to contribute shows in order to survive. 00:55.000 --> 00:58.000 Please consider recording a show for Hacker Public Radio. 00:58.000 --> 01:02.000 Hi, I am welcome to the episode of Hacker Public Radio. 01:02.000 --> 01:07.000 My name is Lee, I am going to talk about some of my experiences with different notes apps. 01:07.000 --> 01:12.000 So for quite a few years I would just be filling up directories with random files. 01:12.000 --> 01:17.000 Either word documents or text files or noting things down in the notes app that comes, 01:17.000 --> 01:19.000 print still done on an iPad. 01:19.000 --> 01:23.000 But a few years ago I realised I needed something a bit more structured. 01:23.000 --> 01:27.000 We should work across different platforms and devices. 01:27.000 --> 01:30.000 We at Windows, Linux, Mac, Android or iOS. 01:30.000 --> 01:35.000 The note should be a study of work or things I was interested in. 01:35.000 --> 01:42.000 My main requirement was that the notes would be in plain text so they could easily contain code snippets. 01:42.000 --> 01:48.000 About this time I was also discovering marked down, which lets you have some rich elements such as headings, 01:48.000 --> 01:57.000 emphasis, distant tables, yet at the same time it remains plain text and is easily readable as such. 01:57.000 --> 02:02.000 My first proper notes app that fulfilled these requirements was simple note, 02:02.000 --> 02:05.000 and this got me started keeping notes in mark down. 02:05.000 --> 02:11.000 They try and moved on to standard notes because I wanted something I could host myself in a server. 02:11.000 --> 02:16.000 My most favourite standard notes had it not been for a failed update, the course did to break. 02:16.000 --> 02:20.000 I mean a little bit more confident using containers now. 02:20.000 --> 02:26.000 By the time I was flum at the stand decides to go back to something where someone else would maintain the back end. 02:26.000 --> 02:30.000 So then I came across a similar app called Indrop. 02:30.000 --> 02:37.000 For me this was and still is the best notes app I've used, and I start with it for a number of years. 02:37.000 --> 02:44.000 It is proprietary, but the author was happy to make improvements to the app that I suggested to him. 02:44.000 --> 02:54.000 However, eventually I decided I did not want to be paying quite so much for a month, for something that essentially I could do for free with pen and paper if I really needed to. 02:54.000 --> 03:05.000 I toyed with QO notes for a short time, which I really liked, I think did not quite mean my particular needs in terms of working on every platform, 03:05.000 --> 03:12.000 and being seamlessly seem to cross devices, then maybe I did not fully give it the effort it deserved. 03:12.000 --> 03:18.000 So my final compromise has been to go with an open source application called Joplin. 03:18.000 --> 03:26.000 While I could host the back end myself, I decided it seems to be better to pay the small monthly fee and have them manage it for me. 03:26.000 --> 03:39.000 This is really nice, the only small issue I have is on some devices needing to be sure to synchronise before turning off the computer, otherwise recent notes may not appear on my other devices. 03:40.000 --> 03:47.000 So how have I found using these various apps and in particular using Markdown as a format for writing notes? 03:47.000 --> 03:50.000 Well first it's worth saying it's not for everyone. 03:50.000 --> 04:04.000 There are some rabbit holes you can go down that can make the process massively complicated to the extent that you're spending a lot of time on the process of not taking rather than spending time working on or studying the subject in question. 04:05.000 --> 04:11.000 I'd happily refer people to other apps, I'm aware of, although I've not used them extensively myself. 04:11.000 --> 04:19.000 For example, on the outline at a never note, which depending on the use case may be a whole lot simpler. 04:19.000 --> 04:30.000 The first big issue with a Markdown notes app is when you want to include images, which Markdown can manage using the exclamation marks where brackets then normal bracket syntax. 04:30.000 --> 04:37.000 It's usually fine if their host did on a major website that aims to have long term perm linked to images. 04:37.000 --> 04:42.000 But if not, or if it's your own image, it needs to be stored somewhere. 04:42.000 --> 04:46.000 Some of the apps I've mentioned have a sensitivity for storing images. 04:46.000 --> 04:52.000 Internatively storing on a cloud storage account such as Dropbox or your own next cloud is an option. 04:52.000 --> 04:58.000 The second problem is not everything that be easily bought across from the original source. 04:58.000 --> 05:05.000 I've had some successes in the variety of tools, even ones I've coded myself, converting web pages and PDFs. 05:05.000 --> 05:15.000 But sometimes it's a real effort and not necessarily worth it when other types of notes app are much more suited for grabbing clippings from these sorts of sources. 05:15.000 --> 05:26.000 Of course, depending on where the purpose is academic or some other purpose, if you're making notes properly, then it's good practice to condense and paraphrase rather than copy of the beta. 05:27.000 --> 05:37.000 I will say I prefer good notes on the iPad if I'm working with PDFs, especially if wanting to scribble and highlight passages in an academic article, for example. 05:37.000 --> 05:43.000 But let's say I'm determined to grab something off the web and put it in my markdown notes app. 05:43.000 --> 05:45.000 Some of the notes apps have web clippers. 05:45.000 --> 05:51.000 It also came across a web service, which is called in its polite version, heck yeah, markdown. 05:51.000 --> 05:56.000 But this seemed not always to be available when I tried to use it for some reason. 05:56.000 --> 06:01.000 So I ended up writing my own, which is online at URL to markdown.com. 06:01.000 --> 06:09.000 This is very far from perfect, but the code is at GitHub.com, forward slash max split, and I have it set up. 06:09.000 --> 06:13.000 So when I discover a website, it gives it problems. 06:13.000 --> 06:17.000 I can hack in some extra filters specific to that site. 06:17.000 --> 06:24.000 So for example, it now does a reasonable job at translating Wikipedia and medium pages. 06:24.000 --> 06:32.000 I hope that if anyone else happens to use it and finds it doesn't work well on the particular site, there will raise issues on the GitHub repository. 06:32.000 --> 06:35.000 So I've been looking to tailoring it through that site. 06:35.000 --> 06:40.000 Because so many sites now does use JavaScript as part of the rendering process. 06:40.000 --> 06:44.000 The converter I wrote works better if it's run directly as a browser extension. 06:44.000 --> 06:49.000 And so far, there's a version for Firefox and a version for Safari on iOS. 06:49.000 --> 06:53.000 Both of these communicate with a back end running on Haroku. 06:53.000 --> 07:01.000 The iOS Safari extension allows itself hosted back end to be specified for anyone who is particularly privacy conscious. 07:02.000 --> 07:10.000 A couple of Linux command line tools I've used together to convert stuff on PDF to HTML and HTML to MD. 07:10.000 --> 07:12.000 They do fairly good job. 07:12.000 --> 07:17.000 Whatever conversion processes used in my experience a little tidying up is often needed. 07:17.000 --> 07:22.000 So I've highlighted some of the drawbacks of these apps, but what about the advantages? 07:22.000 --> 07:28.000 Well, I've heard already argued more than once the text files are future proof. 07:28.000 --> 07:33.000 There's next and no chance a map that you're using now will still exist in 20 years. 07:33.000 --> 07:39.000 But a very good chance there will be apps that can process and display your chef and code your text files. 07:39.000 --> 07:46.000 And in terms of portability, all the apps I've mentioned have good import and export facilities. 07:46.000 --> 07:51.000 Generally, you get out a bunch of plain text files with the extension.md. 07:51.000 --> 07:54.000 And you can import these same files into the next app. 07:55.000 --> 08:00.000 A minor issue though, if you change app as you may lose your image attachments. 08:00.000 --> 08:07.000 Saying that, there probably are ways to export attachments from one app and have them come seamlessly into another app. 08:07.000 --> 08:09.000 I'm pretty sure it takes some work. 08:09.000 --> 08:16.000 Other elements, particularly to one app such as internal links or metadata, may also pose a problem. 08:17.000 --> 08:24.000 But talking of metadata, this brings me on to something I like about these apps, which is categorization and tagging. 08:24.000 --> 08:28.000 In general, there's usually a hierarchical structure to notes. 08:28.000 --> 08:33.000 An example might be having a work folder, then a folder inside that, but it's climb. 08:33.000 --> 08:37.000 At the same time, these apps often let you tag notes in various ways. 08:37.000 --> 08:41.000 So for example, mark them as draft or urgent or completed. 08:41.000 --> 08:47.000 Something I like is when you can give the categories or tags that own color or emoji. 08:47.000 --> 08:52.000 And list of things to do, also often incorporated in these apps. 08:52.000 --> 08:56.000 Jocelyn, for example, has a separate type of notes, specifically for tasks. 08:56.000 --> 09:01.000 In dropdry says one type of note, but you can insert deep boxes easily. 09:01.000 --> 09:07.000 Another aspect of these apps, that you can either ignore or have fun with is theming. 09:07.000 --> 09:14.000 There often settings or plugins that you pick a dark or light theme, and a particular color scheme and font. 09:14.000 --> 09:20.000 There are also often two modes, one for editing and one for reading or previewing. 09:20.000 --> 09:27.000 The editing mode will use a one-space font, whereas the preview mode will have everything nicely rendered and formatted, 09:27.000 --> 09:33.000 or there'll be a split screen mode where you can both edit and see the preview at the same time. 09:34.000 --> 09:39.000 I haven't run into detail about all the features of the different apps I've mentioned. 09:39.000 --> 09:41.000 And my list is not exhaustive. 09:41.000 --> 09:46.000 I've tried them, but I'm no expert, and I've based this on my recollections. 09:46.000 --> 09:49.000 Some I've found easiest to get started with, like, simple note. 09:49.000 --> 09:52.000 Some like Jocelyn, we're very customizable. 09:52.000 --> 10:00.000 I was like, stand notes had a good plugin ecosystem, or some like QO notes, worked really well on a desktop. 10:00.000 --> 10:08.000 And several of them I've been sourced with some like standard notes again, then geared to self-hosting. 10:08.000 --> 10:15.000 So in conclusion, these have been my experiences. I'm not recommending anyone to go change to something different. 10:15.000 --> 10:24.000 Whatever works for you is good. After all, these are only tools used to meet a purpose, and everyone's purposes will be slightly different. 10:24.000 --> 10:28.000 I hope it's been of interest, and thank you for listening. 10:30.000 --> 10:35.000 You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. 10:35.000 --> 10:40.000 Today's show was contributed by a HBR list like yourself. 10:40.000 --> 10:47.000 If you ever thought of recording podcasts, click on our contribute link to find out how easy it means. 10:47.000 --> 10:56.000 Hosting for HBR has been kindly provided by an onsthost.com, the internet archive, and our synced.net. 10:56.000 --> 11:01.000 On this otherwise status, today's show is released on our Creative Commons. 11:01.000 --> 11:05.000 Attribution for.0.0 international license.